Since August, Japan and Russia have been in talks on a peace treaty signing which Tokyo links with settlement of the territorial dispute of the South Kuriles

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida

TOKYO, December 9. /TASS/. Russia and Japan plan talks at the level of deputy foreign ministers in February 2015, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida told a news conference on Tuesday after a meeting between director of the third Asian Affairs Department of Russian Foreign Ministry Andrey Tatarinov and the director-general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s European Affairs Bureau, Hajime Hayashi, who discussed a broad range of issues, including Ukraine and bilateral economic cooperation.

Since August, Japan and Russia have been in talks on a peace treaty signing which Tokyo links with settlement of the territorial dispute of the South Kuriles.

On December 2, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe confirmed plans to settle the territorial dispute with Russia, “We should conclude a peace treaty with Russia and settle the problem of northern territories. I assess positively the latest meeting with the Russian president in Beijing. I plan to work further to settle this (territorial) issue.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier that Russia did not take the border issue with Japan as a certain territorial dispute, “Moscow and Tokyo have documents signed at different times. We have an agreement to continue this work to find solutions which suit both countries and acceptable for the nations of both countries. These are our criteria.”